Getting Out of the Starting Blocks Well: Analyzing the Impact of an At-Risk First-Year Mentoring Program at a Rural High School in the Southeastern United States of America.

As the US educational system recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic, school districts around the country search for ways to help students who have struggled to have academic success. Navigating the transition from middle to high school is critical for reaching on-time graduation for at-risk first-year high school students. A critical step in graduating is ensuring students feel that school is where they belong. Building relationships with a trusted adult on campus through weekly mentoring sessions is a strategy that can impact student academic outcomes. This dissertation uses the methodology of education improvement science through a Plan Do Study Act cycle to determine the impact of a mentoring program on at-risk first-year high school students’ sense of belonging. Collected data included interviews with mentors, surveys from mentors and mentees (Simple School Belonging Scale), and analysis of student database information. Key findings included mentors articulating the belief that mentoring helped their students, no measurable statistical significance in the perception of mentors toward mentoring during the intervention, no measurable statistical significance of mentoring from the analysis of the Simple School Belonging Scale, and a measurable statistical significance in the academic performance of students as they transitioned from middle school to high school. Implications of these findings include building the research on supporting at-risk students in rural and impoverished schools and providing policy-makers with a research-based, cost-neutral method to support students.